


Demon Days

by heartlover



Category: Gorillaz
Genre: Depersonalization, Dissociation, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Phase Four (Gorillaz), i'll tag more as needed, implied/referenced trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-16 23:06:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12352407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartlover/pseuds/heartlover
Summary: Well these demon days are so cold insideIt's so hard to live, and so to surviveYou can't even trust the air you breathe'Cause Mother Earth has a soul to leave...[An insight into Gorillaz's minds]





	Demon Days

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is a weird little project I've been working on. I basically wanted to see if I could form some headacanons on how the members react to their past trauma, as well as their relationships with one another.  
> a character development/angsty thing :D Hope you enjoy!

It’s morning.

Russel turns his head to the window, blinking at the streams of sunlight cutting through his curtains.  He groans, shifting stiff shoulders against his bed and pressing his palms tight over his eyes.  It takes him a moment until he commits himself to getting up; it’s morning, sunrise, and he hasn’t slept at all.

Russel sighs and swings his legs out until his feet hit the floor, toeing over a dry paint splatter near his bed.  His groggy mind has to stretch a bit before it's ready to work again, and Russel stares blankly at the ground until he’s able to stand up and shuffle to his door.

He finds himself in the hallway, each wall housing one or two doors before opening to a dimly lit lounge.  Russel’s eyes feel unfocused as he stares down the tunnel, squinting at the distant shapes of a television and a couch in the back _._ He touches the wall to his right, traces a brief graffiti marking to feel the textured paint under his fingertip, and reassures himself, not for the first time, that he isn’t dreaming.

As he walks, he watches his feet drag forward, scrutinizing them as well.  They swing out before him like robotic limbs, controlled by a phantom of consciousness that pushes and pulls at levers inside of his head.

He was seeing it happen from behind himself and feeling each contact with the ground as an aftershock, a dull, forgotten  _thud_ that hardly registers as a feeling.

It isn't hazy morning brain, or even the lack of sleep.  Russel feels distant, a thick, impregnable haze covering his eyes and projecting the world to him like a mirror.  It isn't quite right, isn't quite  _real._

He feels like a stranger in his own body, unable to determine the difference between reality and delusion.  The two had crossed paths so often that they seemed to hold hands with each other, jumping rope with the thin line of his perception and making him feel like a ghost in his own mind. 

 _Ironic,_ he thinks.

It was in Ike Turner’s basement where it all started to fall apart.  Well, maybe not _started—_ that award went to the sweet city of Brooklyn—but that basement was, at the very least, the apex of his breakdown.  The voices, the loss of control, watching demons and Hell spawn fly through his fingertips and use his verses for their own evil… it brought about deep-seeded collapse and the aftermath left him with surrealism, like all of a sudden, the life he was seeing wasn’t actually _life._   

And that feeling stuck with him, even as his mind grew scabs and Gorillaz worked to rebuild him.  These days, he was better, thanks to the band.  He had his friends back, his work.  It grounded him, if only sometimes, back down to reality. Once again, music seemed to have saved his life.

Russel blinks and realizes that he hasn’t moved for quite some time.  His brain is foggy, but he grunts, determined to carry out his little routine.  A door stands to his left, and he reaches for it, pushing it open to watch a sleeping Noodle turn on her side and sigh.  She's facing him, an expression of complete stillness on her face as her stomach rises and falls with the calmness of a steady tide. 

It's hard not to envy her peaceful sleep; out of everyone, Noodle was the one who never seemed to get nightmares.  Russel's grateful for that.  At the very least, it meant she was doing better.  He could remember times where she was the one standing at his door, tears leaking down her face, her silence speaking more than her words seemed to be able

He would take her in his arms and shush her, running his hand through her half-shaven hair.  The nights where she fell asleep on top of him were fond memories, and at his most selfish of times, he wanted to return to them, to the innocent nights of laying awake and feeling the girl curl contently on his chest.

Noodle's grown so much, though.  She was always a strong and confident girl, but ever since the band got back together, she seemed to blossom.  It was one of the things Russel was reminded of whenever he saw her, chatting on the phone or beating Murdoc at his own wit at the breakfast table.  Beautiful Noodle, with her electric personality and passion.

Nowadays she seems more adult than any of them; she even called herself 'the big sister' of band. That spoke leagues about the rest of the group, but even so, Russel couldn't help but admit that he's proud.

He watches her for a few more seconds before shutting the door, turning now to the one directly across the hall.  His brow creases, eyeing it with an uncomfortable purse of the mouth, but he takes a deep breath and slowly presses his hand to the knob. Bracing himself, Russel leans in and chokes on the thick stench of whiskey and sweat that plows into his face, holding back a cough as he he squints through the smoke in the room. 

It takes a minute until he spots a lump between an unfortunate-looking blowup doll and several velvet pillows, but eventually Russel sees enough of Murdoc to relax and open the door enough to let some light illuminate the bassist's features.

From his place in the doorway Russel can see that they're twitching, lips coiled and curling in a snarl. His eyes are rolling, hands clawing at the spread of his bed in what appears to be a desperate attempt to fight back; fight back from  _what,_ though, he isn't sure. Whatever dream he seems to be having doesn't look very pleasant, though Russel isn't even sure he can  _have_ pleasant dreams anymore, what with his soul already burning in the pits of Hell and all. 

Murdoc growls and reaches out, snatching at something in his sleep before yanking his fist back to his body. Russel watches him kick out again and sighs a little, stepping back to carefully close the door and leave the man in peace. 

It was just like Murdoc to try and beat his demons at their own game, to refuse to show weakness, even to Satan himself.  That fact alone has gotten them into more than a few scrapes in the past, but though he seems to have learned, Russel knows that one day it'll be his downfall. 

Part of him welcomes it, considering all the things he's done.  Their entire previous album is a prime example of how fucked up that man could get, and anyone else involved would have agreed that whatever damnation Murdoc was destined to receive was more than well deserved.

And yet, somehow, a part of him hesitates every time.

His relationship with the bassist is strange, without a doubt.  There's no love in it, or even any  _respect;_ in his opinion, Murdoc has done too much for him to brush it off for the sake of the music.  Bygones be damned, the amount carnage that could be contributed to the satanic douche was enough to fill the surface area of Mexico City. 

But sometimes, when Murdoc thought he couldn't see, Russel would look over and find a certain sadness in his eyes he didn't think the bassist was capable of.  It was guilt and conflict, a battle of wrong and right so intense that Russel almost believed that somewhere there was still a soul left to save. 

The last bedroom, as usual, takes Russel a bit to get to.  It's always the most difficult one, as it left an ache in the pit of his stomach just thinking about it, but the routine was almost done, and he knew if he didn't finish, worry would rack him for the entire morning.  So, as always, Russel takes a deep breath and pushes back the stringy curtain of 2D's room, watching his slender figure silhouetted against the blank, beige walls.  2D is facing the ceiling, mouth open, but there's a strange furrow in his brow that Russel has to step forward to see.  He looks pained, and sure enough, not a second passes before a whimper escapes the singer's throat, Russel watching him grasp at the blanket beneath him with desperate hands. 

Russel watched as the nightmare worked itself into 2D's body, and stepped back, resisting the urge to take him in his arms.

It wasn't too uncommon for Russel to be in this situation.  During the first few months of their regroup, 2D had scared Russel shitless with the daily wails emanating from his bedroom during the night.  Russel would run in there, being the only one awake enough to hear them, and find him curled up on his bed like a child.  He would mumble nonsense, sometimes about whales or cars  and one time about Bruce Willis, and Russel would pat him and hug him if he let him, breathing calmly until their heartbeats matched again. 

It was then Russel learned about what happened on the Beach, and only after a few panicked pleas from the other party did Russel promise not to kill the bassist in his sleep.

Since then he'd been delicate with 2D.  He kept a careful eye on him when Murdoc was around (as did Noodle, he noticed), he made sure he was stocked up on pills, and the instant a migraine or panic attack hit, he was whisked away to calm down without a moment's hesitation. 

Like everyone else, with time 2D managed to build his state back up again, and now he would give his toothy smile when Russel walked into the room and wave, cheery as ever--but even so, the nightmares had only let up a little bit.  He'd been through a lot, after all.

Russel loved 2D like a brother, so it hurt to watch him suffer. In his bed, 2D had squirms and struggles for a few moments as Russel's anxiety grows--the dream must be nasty, because even in his sleeping state the poor man looked terrified.  Eventually he's had enough and starts toward his bed, fully ready to shake him awake and calm the tremors that would roll through him, but all of a sudden 2D relaxes, and Russel pauses to watch him. 

Moments pass and he doesn't move, Russel partially panicking in case he up and died, but with a calm sigh 2D pushes himself over and gives a loud snore into his pillow.  The drummer stares at him incredulously, but he can't help but smile, shaking his head slowly as he turns and makes his way back into the hallway.

Every day it's the same.  Lay awake until the sun comes up, stumble into everyone's rooms, and give the irrational fears a rest for the day.  It was stupid to think that overnight every one of his friends would up and disappear, leaving him alone on a city street, but he couldn't help it. With the thoughts that rose to his mind early in the night, he needed any comfort he could find--and if that meant showing his brain that everyone was still alive every single morning, well, that was exactly what he was going to do.

Though his morning patrol would suggest otherwise, Russel is no caretaker.  Most days it felt like he couldn’t take care of himself, let alone his little motley crew of a band.  In the beginning he was more of a domestic, but that was because Noodle was an overly energetic ten year old, 2D was less fragile but couldn't handle cooking more than boxed mac and cheese, and Murdoc drank himself into oblivion so often that if the others starved and died, it would have taken him a week to notice. 

Slowly, though, the burden had shifted over to Noodle, who's mental strength had far surpassed any of the others.  Thankfully, she didn't seem to mind, because recent events had turned Russel into a walking anxiety attack. There were shootings, protests, politicians spewing garbage over nations of hungry raccoons, eager to take anything they could get. 

Even now, Nazis were popping up like a bad game of Whack-a-Mole--though, Russel thought, Punch-a-Nazi would be a great party game--and, all in all, it seemed like the world was falling to pieces around him.

And he couldn't do a thing about it.

That was something Russel had always feared.  Being useless.  Issues growing so high above their heads that him and his drums and signs couldn't even make a dent in the damage that it was causing.  He would watch the news and be depressed for weeks as it just kept growing, blaring out of their televisions and phones and laptop screens.

More often than not, Noodle would have to take him aside.  She would sit him down and let him cough up all of the negativity he had ingested, listening with her quiet nod and unreadable expression until his tongue went dry.

Then, there would be silence.  A heavy quiet, hanging over their heads like a boulder tied with string.

"...I can't do this, man."  He would say. "Everyone's eating each other alive. It's like a zombie apocalypse, only stupider.  What... what can I do to help it stop?"

And Noodle would sigh, patting his shoulder in a way that made his heart sink.  “You _are_ helping it stop,” she would reply. “There’s nothing more for you to do.”

He knows she’s right.  There  _is_ nothing more for him to do.  And it drives him  _insane._

Russel stands and turns, watching the window drench the walls in a golden light.  He makes his way to the attached kitchen and grabs a slice of pizza from the fridge, leaning against it to turn his face toward the sun.  Russel isn't usually one for nostalgia, but now and again he indulged in the memories of times before he had to think about the world's problems before his own. 

Back when his worries weren’t smaller, but they were familiar enough that some days, he forgot that they were worries.  They were just… life.

Russel remembers an apartment, a kitchen, and laughter.

The memory is painful.  Russel turns and pours himself some water from the sink, drinking it down before a brief flash makes his head jolt.  He shuts his eyes, steadying himself and waiting for it to pass.  The scene grows larger in his head so when he squeezes his eyes shut he sees it, falling into place like a movie screen.  It brings back feelings of happiness and peace that he hasn't felt in years, so he pushes it back down and tries to focus on his feet.

It hurts.  It hurts too badly, but the more he shoves at it, the harder it charges.  Russel walks to the nearest chair to fall on it, and instantly his eyes glaze, locked and staring on the sunrise.

-

Del was in his kitchen, watching Russel cook while the radio played _Dear Mama_ in the background.  Russel’s apartment was small, with cracked walls and the noise of the city spilling in through the windows, but it was nice.  And Del was smiling at him, too, which was always a plus.

"...So I get up to the truck and I'm like, 'yo, where's Charlie at?' and they say 'he's on a business trip. Be back in a week.' I kinda look at 'em and say 'y'all can just hand over my gas money, then, he keeps his bills in the glove box.' and they don't even blink, they just snatch two hundred out of his car!"  Del gave a big laugh, and Russel admired the way his cheeks dimpled near of the corners of his mouth before turning back to his food.

"He's gonna kill you for that, you know."  Russel shook his head but couldn't help but grin as well. "He didn't owe you no damn gas money.  And sure as Hell didn't owe you no damn two hundred."

Del giggled.  "I wasn't gonna correct 'em, man, that'd be rude.  I ain't about to be rude to someone who's stupid enough to give me two hundred dollars for gas."

"You're gonna get your ass beat."  Russel pushed a plate of bacon in front of him, whacking his hat off of his head and sending him flailing for it with a frown.

"Hey!"  He scrunched up his nose, making Russel laugh and nearly drop his eggs on the counter. "If I do, though, you better be there for me.  Gotta have each other's back, yeah?"

He scoffed, turning to fix Del with a look of utter exasperation.  "I'm not gonna save your damsel in distress ass from your own stupidity.  You gotta learn, man, one of these days."

Del recognized the tease and crept up behind him, sliding his arms around his waist to feel him jump.  "Who you calling a damsel?  I'll take fifty of 'em with my hands behind my back."

"And you'll end up hogtied on my front porch with your head shaved."  Russel's elbow stuck out quick, barring Del's hands from sneaking past.  "No way.  Go eat your own bacon.  I swear to God, Del, you test me."

Laughing, Del nudged him and sat back at the table, resting his hand on his chin. Russel tried to hold back any form of amusement, but it was hard.  Del always knew how to get to him.  There was no one in the world who could make him laugh more.

“Hey, man,” Del said, staring out of the window with his dreadlocks pulled back, “when was the last time we were awake at the crack of dawn?  Seems like ages.”

Russel chuckled, taking the seat in front of him and raising a brow. “It was last week, fool.  When you wouldn’t let us go to sleep until you beat me in Mortal Kombat.  Nine in the morning and I was still winning, remember?”

Del’s eyes rolled.  “You were cheating, man.  There’s no way anyone could get a combo that high without a code.”

They laughed, watching the sun slowly peek between skyscrapers in silence.  It was a peaceful morning, a rarity in their part of town, but Russel knew not to grow attached.  Where he lived, peace was nothing but a buffer.  Eventually, it would break.  That was why he savored it so much.

“I always liked sunrises.” Del murmured, and Russel turned to him in surprise, “It’s like… we made it, y’know what I’m saying?  Like a victory noise at the end of a level. Got through another day, like it’s a celebration.”

His eyes fell to Russel’s, and suddenly Russel felt as light as the sun beams hitting his face.

“Yeah.” He mumbled back, and Del grinned, reaching over to press a kiss to Russel’s knuckle.

“We made it, man.” He said, and Russel's smile grew. “No matter how much bullshit the world throws at us, we’ll always make it.  That’s a fact.”

“Yeah.” Russel nodded.  "Ain't nobody tearing us down."  The two of them stared out the window again, fingers lacing together on the table as the sun climbed high over the tops of Brooklyn’s buildings.

-

Blinking, Russel turns away from the window and rubs his fingers into his aching eyes.  The memory faded and left him feeling empty, any happiness draining out of him and a cold, dark void taking its place.  

Del, Del, Del.  The ghost that kept on haunting.

He and Del were never ‘together.’ Neither of them put too much thought in labeling; they both shared a connection that their other friends could tell was different, though it wasn’t ever addressed. Russel never thought it was abnormal to feel so much love for a man.  It felt so natural, like a breath of fresh air in his lungs; it was just how it was supposed to  _be._

They were soulmates, after all.

However, Russel wasn’t stupid.  He saw the shift in Del’s face when they were out together, alone.  He was guarded, wary, like he could feel every stranger’s eyes boring into them as they walked too close together down the sidewalk.

Russel felt it, too, but he chose not to show it.  Out of the two of them, he was the one that needed to be the rock.  And of course it hurt, of course it was hard, but he didn't care.  All that mattered to him, for the longest time, was Del.

A long pause makes him feel like he's glued to the chair he's sat in, muscles unwilling more than unable to move.  He's tired, but glancing at the clock he realizes it's far too late to make any last ditch attempts to sleep in.  2D is usually up by seven thirty, seeing as he's also plagued by restless mornings, so Russel decides to kill time until then and pushes himself back onto his feet with a groan.

There are not a lot of things that calmed Russel.  Over the years the band has tried multiple different techniques, but only sometimes did Noodle manage to lift some of the weights tied on tight to his chest.  He was nervous, but didn't show it, and that made it all the harder to get rid of--beneath his cool, friendly smile held a paranoid mess that was only barely resisting the urge to plaster photos on the wall and start pinning them together with red string.

However, even before his life took a sharp turn on that faithful day in the record store, one thing had always done the trick.  Maybe it was because the ghosts in his head had urged him with their skill and knowledge, or maybe he simply found comfort in being able to do something right, but no matter what kind of thoughts were dive bombing his reality, Russel always turned to his drums.

It was obvious, really.  Why else would he be in a band?

After a few corner turns and long corridors, Russel spots the glinting metal in the overhead light, just peeking out from their dirty studio doorway.  He watches as his cymbals shine in the light, a laptop poised just next to it, and heaves a great, gentle sigh.

Now, he thinks, pressing the soundproof door shut behind him, it was time for some real peace.

   


**Author's Note:**

> \- First of all, thank you so so much for over 200 views on my previous fic!! I honestly didn't expect that much, and all of your comments were so sweet. They really kept me going, because this chapter was Hell to write  
> \- I have no idea what the layout of the spirit house is, so sorry for any confusion on that part!!  
> \- The flashback is set in the 1993-5 sort of times, so Russel can be 20 years or still in high school. I don't know exactly when the drive-by happened, so I kept it vague  
> \- I kinda headcanon Del as a little trouble maker, mainly because of the "Jump the Gut" G-Bite. It seems like he was pretty friendly with doing crazy things for a laugh :P  
> \- I'm really sorry for the long wait! Like I said, this chapter was Hell™, so I'm sorry if it isn't very good. I've poured a month and a half into this, so I think it's at least as good as I could make it, but I guess it's y'all's opinions that matter lmao. This style of writing is new for me, 'cause I wanted to try something not so dialogue based, but e'll see what happens in the next few chapters!  
> \- I'm sorry if I got the tenses mixed up in some places, it got kinda confusing at times  
> \- If you want, tell me who to write about next! I'll be doing all four so it's y'all's choice :D  
> \- Feel free to reach me at:  
> [ Main blog / ](http://heart-lover.tumblr.com)[ Gorillaz blog](https://resetmyself.tumblr.com)


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